365 Days of Drawing Challenge - 352 to go...

I am mad for tutus of any kind. Last night it was time for some drawing fun with a bit of gesture drawing - and tutus thrown on for good measure.

My inspiration comes from Master draughtsman Glenn Vilppu www.vilppustudio.com. He is a one of a kind. Didn't do much with tutus though. I have every book he has ever put out and look at them often and have done for years now.

I was turned onto him by my excellent drawing teacher of old Sheldon Borenstein, http://www.sheldonsartacademy.com/who learned from Vilppu and is an outstanding teacher himself. No-one explains muscle groups quite like Sheldon. He has a way of making boring muscle stuff fun and making things stick in your brain.

The one thing I learned most from these two talents is that drawing is nothing without movement. It is important to practice gesture as much as slick finish. I have seen plenty of dull perfectly rendered drawings lacking movement.

Seems to me there are three schools of drawing, the super classical french Charles Brague academic way, the 50's illustrator Andrew Loomis way, and then the more animator Raphael way (Vilppu and Borenstein).

People who go to art school for four years have the choice made for them by the school they chose. The drawing faculty will teach them its way of drawing.

I didn't go to art school but hopped around seeing all these different styles and approaches. I struggled for YEARS torn between these three different schools that I saw liking some of each to be honest - which way I was going to go? Which one would I immerse myself in? It kept me up at night and delayed my progress in some ways. But I tried them all on, endlessly. Bought endless drawing books too.

I went through a period of being completely frozen. PARALYSIS BY ANALYSIS.

But in the end, it has created the way I draw today. I pull from all three. Sometimes I am a bit more this way than that depending on my mood.

The one thing I am most sure of though, is that I learned to understand the body, the forms of if, how the body fits together, how to see through it, and how important movement is from Sheldon and Vilppu. My private sketch books recording daily life have reflected this way more than any other looking back over the years. When I start a portrait commission, my drawing is always very loose going for the feel, the gesture first, the construction second, the anatomy third.

So thanks Sheldon and Vilppu.

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